{"id":384211,"date":"2026-01-02T21:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T21:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/384211\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T21:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T21:04:10","slug":"they-contribute-to-international-influence-and-cultural-outreach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/384211\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They Contribute\u2019 to \u2018International Influence and Cultural Outreach\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not everyone is happy about George Clooney and his family becoming French citizens. The recent news of Clooney, his wife Amal and their children being granted French citizenship sparked criticism from Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, a junior deputy to the interior minister, who argued in a radio interview on Franceinfo<\/a> that it raised an \u201cissue of fairness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vedrenne suggested that Clooney had been granted French citizenship due to his fame rather than on merit, and she argued \u201cthis is not the right message to send.\u201d She also said she felt that it showed some \u201ddouble standards\u201d and added that she will verify \u201cthe entire procedure,\u201d according to Le Monde newspaper. <\/a>But shortly after Vedrenne\u2019s comments, the interior minister Laurent Nu\u00f1ez fought back the accusations of Vedrenne \u2014 with whom he works closely \u2014 saying that Clooney and his wife Amal were naturalized \u201cby decree,\u201d from a \u201cdecision of the public authority.\u201d Nunez also said Clooney\u2019s naturalization was \u201ca great chance for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

More from Variety<\/p>\n

The ministry of foreign affairs also reacted to the bashing over Clooney, arguing that the government \u201cfollowed a rigorous procedure ranging from security checks to regulatory naturalization interviews at the prefecture, including the payment of tax stamps.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike many French people, we are delighted to welcome George and Amal Clooney to the national community,\u201d said the ministry, who cited the civic code which allows \u201cany foreigner \u2026 who contributes through their distinguished actions to the influence of France and the prosperity of its international economic relations\u201d to gain access to French citizenship.<\/p>\n

Clooney, who lives in Brignoles in the South of France with his family, recently joked while promoting Netflix\u2019s \u201cJay Kelly\u201d on the local pay TV channel Canal+ that his French was \u201chorrible.\u201d He said his wife and kids, meanwhile, speak French fluently. \u201cThey speak French in front of me so that they can say terrible things about me to my face, and I don\u2019t know,\u201d\u00a0he said. Clooney previously told the French radio RTL in an interview in December, \u201cI love the French culture, your language, even if I\u2019m still bad at it after 400 days of courses.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, took the opportunity to mock Clooney after the news of his citizenship. \u201cGood News! George and Amal Clooney, two of the worst political prognosticators of all time, have officially become citizens of France which is, sadly, in the midst of a major crime problem because of their absolutely horrendous handling of immigration,\u201d Trump said on Truth Social.<\/p>\n

However, Clooney is already in the midst of contributing to the French entertainment industry by filming a cameo in the \u201cCall My Agent!\u201d movie spinoff, <\/a>which is produced by Mediawan for Netflix. <\/p>\n

Best of Variety<\/p>\n

Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not everyone is happy about George Clooney and his family becoming French citizens. The recent news of Clooney,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[71535,236,88,184600,24194],"class_list":{"0":"post-384211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-amal-clooney","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-french-citizens","12":"tag-george-clooney"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}